BiographyJohn Austin is everything good about modern pop/rock music.
-- Performing Songwriter Magazine
MELODY AND METAPHOR: THE MUSIC OF JOHN AUSTIN
John Austin was born in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, and started writing songs at age thirteen. Soon after high school he moved to Chicago and began performing on street corners and in subway stations. After winning a national songwriting contest, Austin secured a record contract and recorded his first album, with Mark Heard as producer. Backed by the likes of David Miner, Buddy Miller, and Erin Echo, Austin’s The Embarrassing Young (1992) introduced the music world to an artist rich in both melodies and lyrics.
A sparse second album—Authorized Unauthorized Bootleg—was released in 1994, and remains an adrenaline-drenched document of a Chicago caught in his rearview mirror.
Austin lived out of his car after leaving Illinois, ending up some time later in Atlanta to begin work on Byzantium (1996). Acclaimed as a “do-it-yourself masterpiece” by Performing Songwriter Magazine, the album showcases a fully backed Austin placing his lyrics with such precision that it is only in stepping back for reflection the listener sees in the mosaic of metaphor a piercing analysis of American cultural and spiritual decay.
Austin lived a year in Nashville, co-writing songs for national acts such as Steve Hindalong, before returning to Atlanta to write songs for Erin Echo’s debut album. Austin’s fourth album, the self-produced If I Was A Latin King, was released in 1998. The album revisits Austin’s encounter with gang violence in Chicago, and is filled with Latin rhythms and musical styles; it is a sonic and often experimental concept album that cruises the back streets of violence, love, death, and hope.
In 2002, Austin released his latest album,
Busted at the Pearly Gates. Described as “part pop song-cycle, part roots-rock concept album,” it continues to prove that Austin is a vitally important singer/songwriter.
- MM McLaughlin
back
to top
Contact:
John Austin
| 
